Past the Mission
by Erinya
Summary: Sometime after the events of the movie, Sands comes to find El and disturb his hardwon peace. By request for Miss Becky.


**Disclaimer**: All characters appearing herein belong to Robert Rodriguez and the actors who gave them life.  
**Summary**: Sometime after the events of the movie, Sands comes to find El and disturb his peace. 1220 words written forMiss Becky, who requested Sands and El, hostility, a mention of Carolina and a scent of my choice. One-shot. Tiny hints at Sands/El.  
**Note**: Title partially stolen from the vaguely appropriate Tori Amos song that was running through my head while I wrote this one.

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**Past the Mission (Smoke and Roses)**

The slender man in the black hat stands very still under the arch of the courtyard's gate, head lifted, nostrils flared; his eyes are hidden by dark sunglasses almost too large for his face, with its fine, jutting bones, sunken cheeks and thin-pressed lips.

The scent of roses mingles with the hot-dust smell of Mexico. To the man's right, a mockingbird trills a downward scale; a dry wind rattles and whispers through living leaves. To his left, a cicada clicks away like a pick dragged across bare frets. And from somewhere ahead of him float the slow resonant notes of a Spanish guitar.

The man's stride is measured, careful, soundless on the dusty path. Fifteen steps forward, and he stops to roll and light a cigarette; his shadow falls coldly across the shoulder of the guitar player seated on the low stone wall that encloses the rosebeds. The seated man does not look around, though his hands pause on the strings.

"You," says the guitarist; the single quiet syllable vibrates with suppressed fury or regret.

"Well, yes," the smoker answers brightly. "Who were you expecting? Elvis?"

"So you are still alive." The guitarist sounds not at all amused, and rather less than pleased.

The smoker snorts. "Very perceptive of you, my friend. As with Elvis, rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. I am..." he flicks ash from his cigarette at the nearest rose, graying its bloom, "...still standing."

Long, tapered fingers pick out the first bars of _La Cucaracha_, lending them a mocking twang. "I should have known," the musician mutters.

"I'm a hard man to get rid of," agrees the other, cheerfully. "But what about you, El? What's a cold-blooded killer like you doing in a place like this?"

"I think perhaps I should ask the same of you," El retorts.

His visitor continues as if El has not spoken. "Because if I didn't know better, I would think that you were brooding. Sulking, even. On a grown man like you, that's not a pretty sight." He tilts his head, the ghost of a smile quirking his lips. "Well, maybe a little bit pretty, if memory serves. But I'll admit I'm not the best judge of that these days."

El Mariachi sighs. "What do you want, Agent Sands?"

"Oh, many things," Sands says, silkily. "But I have a better question for you, El." He exhales smoke in twin streams from his nostrils; the bitter aroma of the burnt tobacco challenges and complicates the perfume of the garden, threatening to overcome it. "Is this all that _you_ want from your life?"

El twists around to stare at him, pain darkening his eyes, as if the other man's words have scraped an old wound raw. Behind those opaque glasses, Agent Sands stares past him at nothing at all, smiling slightly.

"It is enough," El says; but his voice betrays that raw place. "It is...peaceful."

At this, Sands claps his hand to his forehead, a theatrical gesture of surprise. "Oh my God, that's right!" he cries. "This was _her_ garden, wasn't it?"

"Go away, Sands," El says softly.

Sands ignores this. "You fucking pathetic old man, El. You should see yourself," and for a moment his voice, too, is not quite smooth, his smile twisting. "The great El Mariachi, reduced to _this_. You, my friend, are living in the past. One might even say you're barely living at all."

"And what if I am?" El sets aside his guitar, carefully, lovingly, and flows to his feet, facing Sands. "It is no business of yours. I suggest that you leave."

"Ah," Sands says, unfazed by the controlled menace in the Mariachi's tone. "But I have a better suggestion, if you'll only hear me out."

A pause. Finally, El jerks his chin, a small concession, though his face is closed, suspicious. "I'm listening," he snaps.

"Well, El," Sands drawls, "it's like this, you see." He waves a lofty hand, a mocking angel fallen into a paradise of sunlit roses and birdsong; dark, beautiful, incongruous. "This is not peace. It's the place you've come to wait for death." His grin is a shark's, blind and predatory. "So why wait?"

"I am not waiting for death," El growls.

"Then what _are_ you waiting for?" Sands chuckles then, a dry sound like scales over stone. "You know, now that I think about it, I wouldn't be surprised if you were expecting your Carolina today, when I padded up behind you. My dear Mariachi, don't you remember?" Smoke and solicitude drips from the words. "Unlike you, myself, and of course Elvis, she is, in fact, quite dead."

The sharp crack of a fist striking bone and cartilage echoes through the little garden. When the dust has cleared, Sands is on the ground, glasses askew, blood running freely from his nose and split lip.

El stands over him, rubbing his lacerated knuckles, chest heaving. "Agent Sands," he says, evenly, "you talk too much."

Sands makes an odd choking sound, lying there on the ground. He reaches one hand up to adjust the sunglasses, hiding the glimpse of dreadful shadow lurking behind them. After a second, El Mariachi realizes that the other man is laughing; it's a rather horrible noise, devoid of mirth. "That's the spirit," he gasps out. "Very good, El. I was afraid you didn't have it in you anymore."

"You're insane."

A soft click that echoes as loudly as that punch of a moment past, and a gun barrel glints like a cold dark eye at El. "Again you state the obvious. I could kill you right now, you know." He speaks lightly, conversationally.

Now it is El's turn to laugh. "You could. But you won't."

Sands gets to his feet, the grace of the movement ruined by the arm he must throw out for balance. "And what," he murmurs, "leads you to believe such a thing, I wonder?" All traces of laughter have utterly vanished from his face and voice; when he sways slightly on his feet, he looks less like a man who's been struck than a snake preparing to strike back.

"Simple." El holds his ground, glancing from the gun to Sands' face, noting the twitch of his jaw and the sweat beading on his forehead. "You need me. Otherwise you would not be here."

Sands' mouth tightens. "Fuck you, El."

"I appreciate the offer," El says mildly to the sightless eye of the Glock. "But I believe I'll take—what is the phrase? A _rain check_. So tell me. Who is it that you want me to kill for you this time?"

The dark glasses glare at him. Seconds drag by. Then Sands half-shrugs, lowering the gun so that it hangs casually in his right hand, and tells him.

El says at last, "We'd be insane to try it. Too risky."

"Yes, yes," Sands says, waggling the gun impatiently.

"But as you told me once," El continues, gravely, "I have nothing left to lose."

"Good," says Sands, with his death's-head grin. "Neither do I."

They turn together then, as if by unspoken agreement, to head inside the hacienda; and if, passing under the wildly blooming jacaranda tree at the garden's heart, El Mariachi touches Sands' elbow to guide him around a particularly low-hanging branch, both men pretend assiduously not to notice.


End file.
